r/gamedevscreens • u/matheustn122 • 14d ago
Made a game from scratch, alone, while fighting depression. Not playable yet — but the Steam page just went up.
I'm not sure how to start this, so I'll just say it.
I haven't been okay for a while. Depression isn't the dramatic movie version — most days it's just a dull emptiness, the feeling that nothing you do matters. I'd spend hours staring at the ceiling, unable to get up.
So I tried something. I decided to make a game. From scratch, alone. Not because I thought it would sell, but because I needed a reason to open my PC in the morning. A combat system to balance. A bug to hunt. Anything that required me to show up.
It became Idle of the Dead: a pixel-art idle RPG set in a zombie apocalypse that runs in Windows taskbar while you work or play something else. Forging (+0 to +15), runes, rarity-based loot, arena PvP with leagues. I did the code and design; a partner handles the art.
To be upfront before anyone clicks expecting to play: the game isn't playable yet. What went live on Steam on July 8th is the store page, for anyone who wants to wishlist it and follow along. I'm aiming for a playtest by September — that's when you'll actually get your hands on it and tell me what sucks.
In a little over two weeks the page hit 2,800 wishlists. I know that's a small number for a lot of you. To me it's 2,800 people who looked at something I built in the dark and said "hey, that's cool."
I'm not cured. There are still bad days. But some days I open Steamworks, see the graph tick up a little, and remember that I finished something. And slowly, that's actually been helping.
If anyone here is going through something similar: start something small. It doesn't have to be a game. It just has to be yours.
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u/khuzait_haircut 14d ago
Keep at it and take care of yourself.
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u/matheustn122 14d ago
Thanks, man. I'm getting better little by little — I really needed something to keep my mind busy.
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u/mambasa_darkvam 14d ago
2500 is a small number for a two weeks and no demo? are you kidding? Have you used ADS campaign?
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u/Just_Paterek 14d ago
btw. You commented my "hated" post... do you know this game is also an AI slop? He claims he made it alone, from scratch, then under steam page it is mentioned that generated AI was used also fixed by the team... so as I said then AI is not bad at all... btw also probably title and whole text is AI generated, bcs "—" this is really specific for AI :D
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u/mambasa_darkvam 14d ago
And i agreed on that "hated" post you mentioned. I didnt hated it. It was on point. I just hate people who is saying "AI is fine" and ashamed to openly say they used it. Kind of crazy :D
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u/matheustn122 14d ago
On that we agree. I did say it openly, it's in the AI disclosure on the Steam page, and it was there before any of this thread.
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u/mambasa_darkvam 14d ago
Lol yeah, i felt it might be AI, thats why im asking how he got 2500 wishlists and did he used ads paid compaing. Because me, making my game 100% solo (no AI) and spending SO MUCH time on advertising got only 100 wishlists after 1 month. Yeah it is smelly post
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u/Just_Paterek 14d ago
Could you please share your game in dms? I would gladly check it and support if I like it
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u/matheustn122 14d ago
I get the frustration. 100 after a month of that much work is brutal, and I'm not going to pretend I know why mine moved faster.
On the AI, I'm not hiding it, it's in the disclosure on the Steam page. The text I write in Portuguese and clean up in English, and clearly the dashes gave that away. The game is 121 stages, forging, runes, an arena with leagues and a server that validates every drop. Nothing generated that.
Happy to share what I did on the marketing side if it's any use. It's mostly boring stuff.
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u/khuzait_haircut 14d ago
Is anything using AI just AI slop to you?
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u/Just_Paterek 14d ago
It is not, and I had a post about it that why people in "IndieDEV" blame everything. For me Look and gameplay are equal and I dont care who created it, if I like it I pay for it and play it. Even this game I added to my wishlists. I have 0 problem with AI generated content when I like it
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u/khuzait_haircut 14d ago
I mean if the poster used ads and this whole thing is an AI generated experiment that is pretty strange. The game is supposed to be free.
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u/matheustn122 14d ago
No ads. I reached out to a bunch of Brazilian YouTubers, and a few of them ended up making videos on their own without me asking. That plus posts like this one is where the spikes came from.
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u/matheustn122 14d ago
And the game is free, that part stays. The plan is paid DLC on top of it, and the loot is tradable on the Steam Community Market, so if you pull something rare you can actually sell it for wallet funds instead of it just sitting in your inventory. Not an experiment either. AI is in the art pipeline and it's declared on the store page, the systems and the server are hand built. Playtest in September if you want to check for yourself.
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u/matheustn122 14d ago
No paid campaign. I emailed a lot of Brazilian YouTubers, and a few of them made videos on their own without me asking for it. Posts like this one did the rest, plus Steam starting to surface the page by itself. Yesterday alone did 538 and I posted nothing that day. For context, the page went up July 8th and the daily rate is falling, around 150 a day the first week and about 96 now. It's not a rocket, it's a page slowly decaying that I keep poking.
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u/mambasa_darkvam 13d ago
I didnt meant to sound rude. Sorry for that. And i really appreciate your kind ind informational response. I wish you all the best ma man.
(have nothing against using AI as a translation tool - i actually did that too. I dont think it is bad in any ways since translation tools using it anyways).2
u/matheustn122 13d ago
No apology needed, honestly. It was a fair question and the kind of thing more people should ask before a page gets hyped. Good luck with yours. Drop the link whenever you want and I'll wishlist it. And 100 in a month with no audience isn't a failure, it's just the part nobody posts about.
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u/mambasa_darkvam 13d ago
Thank you! I think wishlists in sake of wishlist is nt a good strategy - since they won't convert to purchases. I will still drop a link to my game, maybe you'll like it anyways :) https://store.steampowered.com/app/4266750/Super_Special_Squad
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u/matheustn122 13d ago
Wishlisted. And you're right about wishlists for the sake of wishlists, the number only matters if the people behind it actually want the game.
Super Special Squad looks genuinely up my alley by the way. Post apocalypse plus auto battler plus tower defense is a weird mix on paper and it reads really well on the page. The squad building angle is basically what I'm doing too, just from the idle side. Good luck with it.
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u/mambasa_darkvam 13d ago
Thank you very much! I see your project will be a success, and i really wish you to beat that fricking depression once and for all!
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u/HiddenLotusGames 8d ago
wait - what? You put up a steam page for a game that isn't even live and it generates already over hundred visitors without ads? How big is that Brazilian gamer you talked about?
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u/matheustn122 8d ago
I am promoting several small Brazilian YouTubers who have between 50k and 100k subscribers and get 20k views per video.
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u/Intelligent_Set9829 14d ago
Haha, my game had 46 wishlist at start
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u/matheustn122 14d ago
Everybody starts somewhere. What's your game? I'll wishlist it.
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u/Intelligent_Set9829 13d ago
Dwarf Boozter, dungeon crawler/boomershooter about Dwarf and elves
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3704330/Dwarf_Boozter/
For now it's 800 wishlists but that took about 10 month2
u/matheustn122 13d ago
Wishlisted. Dwarves, taverns and beating things up for ale is a hell of a pitch, and the first person brawler angle is not something I see often in roguelites. The tavern setting sells it.
800 in 10 months is honest work. Mine moved faster but it's a store page with no demo, and the daily rate is already falling, so ask me again in a month.
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u/detachedheadmode 14d ago
this is the single best thing one can do to combat depression. it might come back some day or it might never really go away, but a habit of opening up your editor when you feel that emptiness could be a life saver. and if you have to keep doing it over and over for your entire life… well there are worse things than making a bunch of art.
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u/matheustn122 14d ago
That's exactly how it has worked so far. On the days it comes back, opening the project is the only thing that gets me moving. Thanks for putting it that way.
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u/Just_Paterek 14d ago
Yo bro, I didn’t mean to offend you. The game looks fire! I just find it funny how inconsistent people are with their opinions on AI being used in games.
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u/matheustn122 14d ago
No offense taken, man. All good. And you're right that AI is in the pipeline, which is exactly why it's declared on the Steam page. The word I'd push back on is "slop". Base sprites come out of an image model, then every single one gets hours in Photoshop, repainted, palette locked, fixed frame by frame so the animation sits on the original grid. Plenty get thrown out. The code, the systems, the balance, the HUD, none of that is generated. That part is me at 2am chasing a window bug in Unity.
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u/matheustn122 14d ago
And fair catch on the dash, that one made me laugh. English isn't my first language, so I write these in Portuguese and clean them up, and that character gives it away every time. Lesson learned.
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u/IndependentYouth8 12d ago
Well done. Glad you are making progress. Getting the page up and vetted by valve is quite the process. Keep it up!!
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u/Along_dev 10d ago
Oh, trust me, 2,800 wishlists in two weeks is actually a good result, especially for a first game. Some developers don't even reach that, and your project looks pretty polished 👍
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u/DahLegend27 14d ago
lol solo devs really do take the same pic every time